Fraudulent Cause
by Treasurer
Summary: Jasper thinks back to his time with Maria. "Our fear glued our bodies together, created our three worded lies. And for some reason, it was a comfortable place for us, almost our safe haven from everything else." T for mentioning of adult situations.


**A/N: I really just love Jasper's head. Thanks to PaperArtist, and her little push, this is doubled in length from the original. I hope you enjoy.**

I never loved her, I just respected her. At first, I respected her because of her power, the regal air around her that only she could have possessed. Her round eyes, even in their crimson color, were doe like. They projected innocence and safety and they lured so many to their death. Looking back, I'd say that was exactly what Maria was, a wolf in sheep's clothing. Everything about her, even as a vampire, drew you in. She could make you feel needed and adored or hated and disgusting with a bat of her lashes or a sneer. Even then, her eyes still marked the picture of childlike innocence.

I learned fast and soon realized that the others weren't quite making it as far as I was and that the few that had stayed as long as I had, were gone. But, Maria told me it was necessary, and I believed her. I believed everything she had said, even when I got the sense she was wrong.

She always told me I was special, her favorite, that I would go far. And I lived to hear those words from her. Earning her approval, it meant the world to me.

When talking about our lifestyle, how we lived to destroy everything in our way, she would tell me this was the safest way, the best way to live. That all of the wandering nomads ended up dead and were weak. That people like us, the powerful, killed them. This was the only way to live, better yet, the only way to survive.

In the beginning, I didn't understand the emotional climate I lived in. The feelings of lust, hatred, thirst, and exhilaration I would feel all at once simply while taking a dip in a lake or reading a book I had found off of a recent meal left me utterly confused. I asked Maria about it after my first few months and her large mouth formed into a beautiful, teeth showing grin.

"Jasper, what do you feel...now," her smile remained as she said the words. I looked at her in confusion, what would it matter how I felt?

And then it hit me, "Euphoria." I had no idea where the sudden shot of happiness came from, and then I did, because the euphoria turned into something else immediately, "Amusement."

She clasped her hands together and jumped up like a school girl, squealing. "Jazz, don't you know what this means? You can feel others emotions!" And then her mouth set into a line, her forehead scrunched in concentration, and her head tilted to the side, as if she were doing a difficult math problem. "Do you think you can manipulate emotion as well?"  
I scratched the back of my head, smiling now, trying to think of how I would even go about doing that. "I have no idea. Hold on." I got a grip of her feelings. Just knowing that I could feel her emotions made it possible for me to detect what I was truly feeling and what was just the atmosphere around me. She was mostly curious. I tried to think of a palpable emotion, one that she would know I was sending to her, I figured lust.

I didn't really know what to do, so I just stood there staring at her, bringing up every feeling of lust I had ever had trying to push it's way to her. It had almost a texture, even a taste, hazy and thick on my tongue, like the lingering effects of wine. For a minute or so, her stance hadn't changed, she just looked expecting. Then, she licked her lips and her eyes became hooded with the most intense "come-hither" look I had ever seen. I got so excited at the fact that I had effected her, that I lost my focus and just as quick as her sudden lust came, it left. The texture and taste abrubtly left my tongue.

Her grin grew, if possible, twice it's normal size as she danced the slight distance between us to place her hands on my face with the look of a proud mother who had just seen her son's first steps. The expression should have made me angry or feel like a child, but for some reason, it just made me feel proud. Much like the giggling toddler would feel after his mother gave him praise over the three steps he had made.

"Jasper, I always knew you'd be amazing. Look at you, so gifted already and then this! Don't you realize how powerful we can be?"

My smile grew as well, she had said _we_, not _I_, something I had never heard from her before. I thought then that she considered ourselves a team. I lived to hear those words from her, I lived for her. "I'll do anything for you, Maria."

Her smile softened in such a way that it wouldn't have surprised me if she had patted my head like a dog. "I know dear, I know...Just think of the options, oh!"

It took us a few years of practice, but we soon figured out that I could calm down the ravenous newborns or get them even angrier when it came time to battle. I could lull the vampires who were growing useless into a false sense of safety as I marched them to their death. Not only could I do that, but I could sense when people were starting to have traitorous thoughts, which came in use when Maria's original partners, Nettie and Lucy, were starting to have them.

The two blondes were starting to distance themselves from me as much as they could, and even more so from Maria. That alone wouldn't have bothered me. It was what they were feeling when they _were _around her or I that scared the living hell out of me. Animosity, hatred, vengeance, fear. Thick, metalic, rusted dirt on my tongue. The taste of holding back your words by biting your tongue. I lived in a world full of these emotions on a daily basis, but what was coming out of them were some of the most intense feelings I had ever felt. I never thought I'd be feeling that from them, it was affecting me.

At first, I didn't know what to do about the situation. Why would they be feeling such distaste for Maria and I, had we done something to them? I wasn't sure, but I knew that they were planning to do something to me, or even worse, Maria. At that point, I considered that worse than any form of punishment received on my end.

The final straw was when I got concrete evidence as to what they were planning. I overheard them whispering amongst themselves, just outside of the plantation house we had taken upon ourselves to reside in for the last few weeks while we planned to take over another territory.

"She's getting too greedy, Lucy. She's going to get ourselves killed."

"She doesn't know when to simply stop."

"Then it's decided, we need to dispose-"

I ran immediately to Maria's room, hoping they hadn't noticed my eavesdropping in my haste to get away. When I busted through the door, she noticed the fear in my expression, the urgency. I was hunched over, hissing, glaring behind her out the window, looking at Nettie and Lucy who were by the nearing woods.

"What is it, Jasper?" Her voice held no fear, only confusion.

I was out of breath, not technically, but my body was still gasping for air in rage as I continued to stare out the window. Speaking in broken pants, I whispered, "Nettie. Lucy. They're planning to kill you."

She turned around to peer out the window, walking up to it and pressing her face against the glass. She sighed, raising her hand above her head to rest on the glass as well. "I'm going to tell you something, and I want you to listen to me, okay?" All I could feel coming off of her was remorse. Thin and warm, like gasoline.

I stepped closer to her, just behind her back, peering at the two people we once had called allies laugh bitterly over what they thought would be Maria's end. I had never seen her upset over anything that wasn't as shallow as land ownership, I wanted to be there for her. "Of course, what is it?"

Her words came out slow and formed, "You'll never hear this from my lips again, but Jasper, don't ever trust anyone. Everyone you know, they'll betray you eventually. It's how the world works. The second someone decides you're not of use or that you're a liability, they will try to get rid of you. So, you must always be ready to do the same. It's not just your enemies, you know, it's those you consider your friends, too. You have none. I mean it, everybody." She hesitated for a moment and sighed, "Even me."

When she turned around to face me, our bodies so close that her breasts touched my stomach, her entire demeanor had changed. Her face was a stone mask, her heart was despondent, her voice was filled with hate, "I want you to kill them, now."

Of course I did as she asked, I would have even if I hadn't felt so inclined to do so. I had killed many over the first few decades with Maria, but nothing felt like killing Nettie and Lucy. Normally, killing to me was destroying, it was routine, what I did for a living. Killing them felt like retribution, but it also felt like a loss, the first time it actually felt like _murder_.

Maybe it was because I had grown close with them, maybe it was because they were two of the three people I had started this life with. It didn't matter, it sparked a change in me. It made me realize that I had always been a murderer.

The fact that I had just realized this didn't make me feel any better, nor did Maria's words. In two words, she had told me everything she had said and would say to me was a lie, she told me the second she didn't need me anymore, I'd be gone. She taught me that you couldn't make friends in our world, only temporary allies. This is when my respect warped into a different kind.

No longer did her power demand my respect, I simply respected her out of fear. The battles that awaited me did not keep me riddled with anxiety, I knew for sure I would make it out alive. I didn't mind disposing of so many that I had created just because they were no longer of use, even then I still believed her words as truth when it came to the necessity of their destruction. But I feared her. She owned me, she created me. I realized that Maria had giveth, and Maria could taketh away.

Although I had never felt romantic love personally, as far as I could remember (Many moments of my human life escape me.), I had experienced it in passing between Peter and Charlotte, two in our army we had created. I didn't understand the complexity of their relationship then, I just knew it was more than a friendship. It was less hazy and more languid than lust. For some reason, I kept this information from my creator, knowing that somehow, she would use this to her advantage. And even though I knew Maria didn't love me and that I didn't love her, when she would say those words, everything felt lighter, easier, simpler. It made me feel like less of a murderer.

She knew I knew her words were false, just as much as she knew my words were the same. Yet, we repeatedly spoke them to each other after each victory I gave her. How many lives did I kill just to hear her approval, her words that meant I would live through the night?

At first, when I had just started to prove my usefulness, she'd give me a gracious smile and a kiss on the cheek, a full meal waiting for me. She'd call me her Ares, her soldier, her fighting man. I'd feel for her emotional pull and all I could ever find was euphoria and excitement.

I was rewarded often for my conquests to gain her more land, more blood in the form of a human body count, and I was very rarely ever thirsty. Unlike most of her soldiers who she starved just to get them to be more murderous on the battlefield, I was always kept full and content and ravenous and destroyed. I began slowly feeling trapped in her confines, and I knew no way out of it, so I kept close on her good side, tried to get as far up her ladder as allowed.

She started hanging around me more to praise me after I killed Nettie and Lucy, and I'll never forget how it felt the first time her two small hands tentatively grasped my shoulders and began to rub them. It felt like treason. I winced, first in pain from all of the new wounds I had received on my back that were still burning and healing, and then in fear that she was going to try and kill me. I had almost lost the battle that day.

The battle was amongst the worst I had ever gone through in my existence with Maria. I wasn't ready for the ambush, our small army was still being trained between the last slaughtering and we just weren't expecting to be attacked. It was their fourteen to our eight. And although we had gotten good at keeping ours alive, the fact that we had started out below, decimated our numbers to three remaining other than me. I watched all that I had created be destroyed before they even hand a chance. Some only a few weeks old. Something like that would have never upset me before, but then, at that moment, it just did. I had gotten hurt as well, their leader had gone straight for me, and the fight lasted far too long for my liking. He had bitten me more times than I wanted to admit and I barely made it out alive. It was one of the first times on the field I really feared for my life, where it occurred to me I might not make it. I feared Maria's disappointment more than the prospect of dying still.

I tried to get a feel of her and then I knew what was to happen, and even if I wanted to, I couldn't tell her no or thwart of her advances. Maria got what she wanted, and her lust and mischievousness told me she wanted me.

I didn't understand what caused her abrupt advances towards me, but I didn't try to either. Now, it makes perfect sense, control in the most natural form.

She continued to rub my shoulders and I finally eased their tense position, I knew she wasn't going to hurt me and even though the friction over my open bites hurt, it was a good hurt, a pleasurable one. She lowered her mouth to my ear and her satin, ink hair fell onto my shoulder as she did so, sending her sweet fragrance into my senses. She only mouthed the words to me, not needing to speak. I could feel the air as it pushed around her lips, forming, "You never disappoint me, love. Can't I please repay you for all that you have done for me?"

A part of me wanted to tell her to let me go and leave me be if she wanted to repay me, and I think she knew that. But, the part of me that wanted to stay alive, and also the infinitely male side, simply nodded my head, too afraid that my words would fail me.

She hummed her approval of my submission and started kissing my neck just under my ear, I slumped down further into her hands as she continued with her procession of rubbing my back. Every nerve ending in my body had become a live wire as she started to slip her hands under my shirt to pull it off of my body. Her hands trailed lightly on my back and she moaned at the sight of my scarred form, licking her way from my shoulder blades back to my ear to whisper, "All of these scars, Jasper, how I adore them. They're for me. You've gotten everyone of these to keep what I have, to let me gain. You've gotten all of these scars for me. Don't you know how much that..." she trailed off because I abruptly spun her around and kissed her. I knew that she would think that her words had driven me to kiss her in my eagerness, and she was right, her words had driven me to kiss her, to shut her up. I hadn't gotten any of my scars for her, maybe in the beginning, but now, I had gotten them keeping myself alive and I knew that if she continually spoke in that manner to me, I wouldn't be able to touch her.  
The kiss, only brought on to quit her sadistic ramblings, was intoxicating and powerful.

Mingled with her arousal, I could feel mild amusement. I pulled away from her lips and arched an eyebrow towards her. "You're projecting, Jasper. Lust and Angst. How much fun this will be."

I growled as I pulled her lips back to mine, mumbling something along the lines of, "shut up." I gave up on hiding anything I was feeling, she knew of my animosity already. Apparently, she liked it.

Our sex, then and how it always was, was raw and full of rage. It was a constant stream of profanities, scratches, and bites. But, it was passionate and beautiful and all consuming, because it was us and it was filled with hate. And yet, our parting words were always a form of, "I love you."  
I purposefully projected my emotions towards her when we were together, I wanted her to know that even though I said I love you and even though I came to her bed, that I hated her more than I had ever hated any one in my entire life, that it was my fear that kept me with her. Her rage and ever growing animosity let me know that even though she said she needed me and was grateful for all that I had given her, she was jealous and scared of me, hoping she could soon find a reason to not need me anymore.

Our fear glued our bodies together, created our three worded lies. And for some reason, it was a comfortable place for us, almost our safe haven from everything else. It was the way we learned how to make it, to keep me from running away and to keep me alive.

She couldn't understand my growing resentment to our lifestyle, the crawling depression that was slowly engulfing me, keeping me unsatisfied. She told me, as she always did, when my low moods would peak, "This is the only way to live, Jazz, you know that."

Maria had kept only one soldier past their year mark other than me, and that was Peter who had made it three years to my slowly encroaching turn of the century. He was powerful and still of use, yet he had not posed a threat to her as I did. It was the only thing that kept him alive. We were the two called upon when it came time to dispose of the few vampires that had survived their first year in battle. They were growing weaker. Their time, run out. What once made sense, had started to become a strenuous task for me to perform. It was methodical and routine. I brought each victim away from their group, and Peter made sure that they did not escape their death.

We'd gather them in the basement of the plantation houses we would find, and if we were moving, we never stopped except to round them up like cattle in a trench or a cave until we were ready to take them out one by one to hunt, or at least that is what we told them. Taking them out to hunt, it became synonymous for us to bring them to their death. It kept the fear, mostly, at bay and made it easier to dispose of them without them fighting back.

Peter tried to talk me out of a few of the vampires' deaths, but what Maria said, went. And even though I agreed with him, I told him no. He was pissed.

When I knew Charlotte's time was up, I had no clue as to how he would react. I knew they were close, yet I still didn't know what that bond would mean. I had never felt the way he did about her about anyone. I had seen people avenge the death of their mates, but was Peter the same way? He was the only one I had known that felt the same way I did about the fight. We were good at it, but we hated it. Would he fight me?

When I told her to follow me, I could sense her fear, her love, and what surprised me, her hope. As we approached Peter, his eyes widened and before I could sense it, he had her out of my hands and behind his back and he yelled for her to run. With a parting glance, he followed.

I had no idea as to where I was letting them go, or what that would mean for me. He truly was my only other companion besides Maria. For a moment, I selfishly thought about following them to bring him back. But, I realized I would no longer have him as a friend if I killed his mate, his love. I wondered what my relationship with Maria looked like to them. I knew very well my answer as I turned my back away and slowly made my way back to the camp. It looked like a fraudulent cause.

Maria was not pleased, but I came up with a story fast enough that I thought she'd believe. I told her that Peter said he would take care of her while I went to get another victim, to speed the process along, and when I came back, they were gone. Following them, it would have been pointless, who would have made sure the newborns were in check?

"How could you have not known they were bonded?" she had seethed.

She slapped me, and although it didn't hurt, my eyes widened in shock. In all my time with Maria, she had never laid a hand on me in a violent way. I had watched plenty of my peers be tortured by her, if they were lucky enough to survive, but never had she ever given me anything short of praise. She had finally lost her perfectly set composure with me, her poker face had dropped. Yet, I couldn't find it in me to regret letting Peter and Charlotte go and find happiness or just to die, even if it meant my own life. I knew they were safe from at least us, she did not trust one of her soldiers to go out and look for them, she knew for sure we wouldn't come back. She knew Peter and Charlotte definitely wouldn't come back for a fight. But, instead of hurting me or killing me, she just kissed me. Behind that mouth was poisonous rage that left me feeling black and charred. She couldn't kill me yet, so she made up for it in the only way she learned how. When we were done, she said something that scared me just as much as the slap, something that told me she was planning for my time to be up soon. Something I'm sure I'll never forget. To anyone else, it'd seem like a harmless statement, but I knew the implications. "Jasper, I love you. Don't hurt me again."  
She was being, somewhat, honest with me. She showed me her fear in words instead of emotion. No more need to hide her feelings. She was letting me know that she knew I had let them go. She let me know that at that moment, I had the upper hand, that she needed me. Still, I did not act upon this. I didn't know what a world with out her was like. I didn't know how to exist without this murder. She had told me time and time again that this was the only way. She knew I knew it was a lie, but even with my gift, I somehow had begun to believe her.

"I won't, I promise." Sadly, I was mostly speaking the truth. I didn't know how to hurt her. I hated her with every ounce of my being, but I also worshipped the ground she walked on. I needed her like she needed me, and we hated each other for it.

Time went on, and things relatively stayed the same. Maria assigned me a new partner to kill the rest with, and the monotony continued. Only one thing changed. Maria's resolve of murderous rage was starting to become all consuming, her lust and fear almost completely gone. I could feel her contemplating, forming a plan and I knew it would be to my demise. Yet, I did not flee, because I didn't know what I would be running to. Was death really such a horrible option? I planned on kill her, too. But, I didn't want to. She was the closest person to me I had ever known. Killing her would feel so much more like a _murder_ than killing Nettie or Lucy. She was my mother, my friend, my lover for so many years, would it be just as hard for her to kill me?

Sometimes I wonder what took her so long to finally make a plan to kill me, my only answer is that maybe she didn't really know her chances of making it out alive. My body was a walking billboard for every person I had killed. For almost every bite mark on my body, there was someone dead by my hands. Did I scare her into our impasse?

I was sitting on a branch outside of our most recent plantation home, where I had executed a few "useless" vampire earlier that night when I heard feet fastly approaching me from behind. _Maria_ was the first thing I thought as I turned around, teeth bared, to my opponent. But, the scent and a quick focus let me know that it was Peter. Immediately, I scoped the perimeter for Maria or anyone that would notice him, I had been left alone.

"Why are you here?" I whispered to him when he finally approached me.

"To get you the hell out of here, " he all but shouted. "Come one, you're running out of time. She'll come looking for you soon. Jasper, you don't have to live like this. Up north, there are no wars! We live separately and in peace, I've talked to a few vampires in passing and never once has a fight occurred. Charlotte and I are living for the first time, it's beautiful. She lied to us, Jasper. This is not the only way we live."

I thought of the last time Maria and I had lay together, it was earlier in the day and the last time she had said she loved me. Usually she said it in a condescending, ironic tone, or a sickly sweet manner, but this time she had said it with such hostility I had to think for a second and make she hadn't said she hated me. My perfect recall and hearing reaffirmed what she had said. "I love you," but it came out more like, "I can't wait to see you dead."

If there was a life outside of this hell, then that most certainly was more gracious than the death I had been waiting for. And leaving her here meant that I got to keep her alive.

Much like the time before when Peter and Charlotte escaped, I ran from our base camp as fast as my feet could carry me, away from my personal devil and to the unknown that already tasted like heaven.


End file.
